


Epilogue

by anitaupstairs



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1532771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anitaupstairs/pseuds/anitaupstairs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One possible outcome to Bucky's reacclimatization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epilogue

He wakes up in a hospital bed. His head aches and his left arm is wrapped in gauze. If feels numb and his head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. There are monitors everywhere, charting and graphing, their beeping providing an ambient medical noise. His throat is dry and he sits up slowly, warily. There’s a plastic cup on the table next to him and he drains it.  
  
  
He smooths his hair out of his face. It’s long and he has a beard. He rubs his chin, this is new. Part of the gauze has slipped and there’s a glimmer, like metal. He panics, did he get shrapnel embedded in his arm. He scrabbles at the wrappings and, like some decaying mummy emerging in an old horror film he’d taken Steve too, _Steve? ___the arm is visible. It’s metal. He has a metal arm. He must make some sort of noise, because suddenly there are nurses, asking him questions, a doctor shines a light in his face and they’re asking him all these questions. He struggles, his name is James, no, he doesn’t remember how he got here. No, he’s not sure what year it is. The doctors don’t seem worried, they just take notes and tell him to sleep.  
  
  
He wakes up in the same hospital bed some time later, it’s dark. Light pollution silhouettes the shades against the window, like a postage stamp held up to the sun. He rolls over, trying to get comfortable. The arm, his metal one, is cold.  
He relaxes into the bed, listening to the steady beeping that marks the rhythm of his heart. There are people talking outside the door. He can hear them, a man and a woman. The woman’s voice is softer and the man might be crying. His voice is low and choked. Someone must’ve died. This is, after all, a hospital. The woman is consoling him, and he wonders if she’s the man’s wife. No, she can’t be, the man, the man has lost his wife. Not his wife, his husband maybe. A man he loved. She’s trying to shush him, her voice gentle and calming. He hears an impact, the man slamming his fist into the wall.  
  
  
He sits up, grabbing on to the IV like some sort of invalid. He shuffles out into the hall, and the two turn to look at him. The woman is very beautiful, but cold with porcelain skin and short, curly red hair. She looks surprised, her lips forming a little red o. The man is facing the wall, he turns and James can see his face is ghostly white. His eyes are red, slightly sunken from lack of sleep. He licks his lips, looking at James, as if he’s both staring into his soul and right through him.  
  
  
“I’m sorry” James says. His voice is rough and rusty. He wishes he had another glass of water.  
  
  
“Bucky” the man whispers  
  
  
“Is he who you lost?”  
  
  
The man nods, covering his face with his hands. The woman puts a hand on his shoulder, steers him back to his bed. He looks back one last time, the blond man has slid down the wall, cradling his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking and even though before he’d looked huge, he looks small now.  
  
  
James maneuvers around his arm, back under the covers. At least Bucky had someone who loved him.


End file.
